Foxygen "We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic"

We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic is a precocious and cocksure joyride across California psychedelia with a burning, bursting punk rock engine. In the same year as Scott McKenzie the singer of "San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)" leaves this mortal coil, Foxygen delivers unto us the dandy Glockenspiel-packing "San Francisco," which both circumvents and dissects McKenzie's tune and its many cousins of the era. "I left my love in San Francisco/(That's okay, I was bored anyway)/I left my love in a field/(That's okay, I was born in LA)" goes the lovely call-and-response chorus, slamming together the archetypal flower children of the 60s and the archetypal ADHD vapidity of our recent generations. Another highlight, "Shuggie," manages to fit all the light bounce of the song's namesake and the climbing choruses of ELO into it's 3 minutes while still filling the tune with imagery of "rhinoceros-shaped earrings" and haunted parlors. Every nook and cranny of the record is loaded with their unflappable, brazen personalities. Foxygen takes "swagger," that as-of-late misused adjective, back once and for all. It's flipping pyramids old and new upside down — from the miracle demo hand-off to their Richard Pryor-as-Jagger live shows to their singular idiosynchratic vision of rock n' roll.

Foxygen "Take The Kids Off Broadway"

Foxygen is the bi-coastal songwriting duo of Sam France (vocals, Olympia, Wash., 22 years old) and Jonathan Rado (guitar/keyboards, NYC, 22). They are the raw, de-Wes Andersonization of The Rolling Stones, Kinks, Velvets, Bowie, etc. that a whole mess of young people desperately need. At the same time, they pull a very Anderson-type move wherein they paint an impressionistic and hyper-real (and instantly recognizable) portrait of specific places and times — and blurring the lines between time and place. Yet, it never comes across as anything but absolutely modern music. They bring the freewheeling qualities of someone like Ariel Pink to those aforementioned influences to make for one of the most refreshing listens of the year. They are the real deal and total savants. Jagjaguwar is proud to introduce you to Foxygen and their bedroom masterpiece Take the Kids Off Broadway.

Gayngs "Relayted"

When Ryan Olson decided to make a record with Solid Gold members Zack Coulter and Adam Hurlburt, it was clear to them what the result would be: a collection of drugged-up keyboards and slick bedroom production almost exclusively inspired by 10cc’s “I’m Not In Love.” What they didn't know was that it would spiral into a project of epic proportions, enlisting the talents of over 25 musicians from various scenes around the country, relocating the base of operations from Olson's Minneapolis bedroom/studio to the Wisconsin-based studio April Base, and the genesis of a musical super-family, Gayngs.

Olson began calling upon an eclectic cast of contributors whom he thought would share his vision, and relish in the idea of exploring uncharted musical territory within them. The first people to join the cause were Megafaun and Ivan Howard of the Rosebuds. Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and Mike Noyce were soon to follow. By mid-2009 the studio sessions were becoming more and more frequent, bouncing back and forth between April Base and Olson's bedroom. In Minneapolis, Olson brought in Rhymesayers rapper P.O.S and his fellow Doomtree artist Dessa, psych-rockers Jake Luck and Nick Ryan (Leisure Birds), song-birds Channy Moon-Casselle and Katy Morley, jazz-saxophonist Michael Lewis (Happy Apple, Andrew Bird), retro-pop duo Maggie Morrison and Grant Cutler (Lookbook), and slide-guitarist Shön Troth (Solid Gold).

Vocally, Gayngs is a triumph. Zack Coulter (Solid Gold) shines from the jump, floating over the record with his airy, haunting melodies. Fans of Bon Iver will recognize Vernon's familiar falsetto, but will flip when they hear his Bone Thug's-style R&B, while P.O.S. abandons his genre entirely for a soul inspired tenor. With over a dozen people contributing vocals, its incredible how cohesive the album sounds.

After a year of tracking and mixing, Gayngs is officially ready to release the album, entitled "Relayted". With each song written at 69 BPM's, and tripped-out transitions from song to song, it is truly an audio experience from start to finish.

Gordi "Reservoir"

On the farm in rural Australia where 24-year-old Sophie Payten - AKA Gordi - grew up, there's a paddock that leads down to a river. A few hundred meters away sits another house, which belongs to her 93-year-old grandmother. The rest, she says, "is just beautiful space. And what else would you fill it with if not music?"

And so she did, first tinkling away on an out-of-tune piano, and then on the acoustic guitar she got for her 12th birthday. Gordi's first foray into songwriting came in the form of performances at her school’s weekly chapel. There the chrysalis of the music she's making now — a brooding, multi-layered blend of electronica and folk, with lyrics that tend to avoid well-trodden paths -- began to form. "I often find that writing about platonic relationships," she says, "can be a great deal more powerful than writing about romantic ones." "Heaven I Know," the first single from Gordi's debut album Reservoir, is an example of just that. With the breathy chant of "123" chugging along beneath the song's sparse melody and melancholic piano chords, "Heaven I Know" gazes at the embers of a fading friendship. The ramifications of loss ripple throughout Reservoir, which she wrote and recorded in Wisconsin, Reykjavik, Los Angeles, and Sydney. Gordi produced two of the tracks herself ("Heaven I Know" and "I'm Done"), and co-produced the rest.

When it comes down to it, the running thread of the album is its lyrics. "Music is kind of what encases this story that you're trying to tell," says Gordi. Her stories are stark, honest, and soul-searching. Like "the trifecta" of Billy Joel, Carole King and James Taylor that sound-tracked her upbringing, she's unafraid to sit in contemplative melancholy — a place she calls, fittingly, "the reservoir."

Gordi "Clever Disguise EP"

There are few young songwriters the caliber of Sophie Payten. At 22 years of age, Gordi distills a broad spectrum of emotional experience into captivating, spine-tingling musical gems – a worldly vocal punctuated by wonderful arrangements. Gordi’s musical instincts began on the piano at an early age by virtue of her music teacher mother. Like so many of her musical heroes, she was later drawn to the earthiness of the steel string – a useful piece of armory to have growing up on a farming property in Canowindra in rural New South Wales, Australia. But the craft in her songwriting is found partly in the emotional spectrum that her tracks span – from wistful aching to spirited celebration, her lyrical journeys take us places in our memories and imaginations that belie her 22 years. The candor in Gordi’s songs is matched by a vocal tone that is at once fractured and brimming with richness. Combining vintage vocal layering and earthy guitar textures with delicate modern electronic production, Gordi’s sonic palette is one she can call her own.

Jad Fair & Daniel Johnston "It’s Spooky"

First released in 1989 on Jad's own 50 Skidillion Watts Records, Jad Fair & Daniel Johnston's IT'S SPOOKY (as it was called for the European pressing; the American version carried the title Daniel Johnston & Jad Fair) seemed like the perfect pairing of two of the most unique and idiosyncratic songwriters to emerge from the post-punk rubble of the late-'70s. Jad and his brother David Fair self-released their seminal first album as Half Japanese in 1977, citing punk forefathers (and fellow Michiganders) MC5 and the Stooges as critical influences. They followed that with over a dozen full-length albums and countless singles, not to mention Jad's collaborations with Yo La Tengo, the Pastels and Teenage Fanclub.Meanwhile, Daniel Johnston had self-recorded his first songs on the family piano with a boombox between 1980-82. These songs would eventually make up the earliest of the twelve cassette releases which he hawked on Austin, Texas, street corners, a few of which were re-released by Homestead Records, and were subsequently followed in the early '90s by his two stunning studio classics for Shimmy-Disc (1990 and ARTISTIC VICE), and his one and only record for Atlantic Records (1994's FUN). A Beatles fanatic at heart, "a healthy number of discerning musicians and critics have hailed Daniel Johnston as an American original in the style of bluesman Robert Johnson and country legend Hank Williams." On this new expanded reissue -- which contains 6 bonus tracks not on the original version -- IT'S SPOOKY stands up as a true masterpiece, sadly overlooked in its day. A magical trip through the child-like universe of two kids at heart, it is even more impressive now with twelve years of perspective just how uninhibited Jad & Daniel are as they walk you through their best fantasies and worst dreams on IT'S SPOOKY's 25 originals and 6 covers (by the likes of Burt Bacharach, the Beatles, Phil Ochs, and Austin friends and co-conspirators the Butthole Surfers and Glass Eye).Also, as a special added bonus, this reissue is an enhanced cd and features a very moving live video performance of Daniel on organ playing his "Don't Play Cards With Satan". This never-before-seen archival footage was shot by David Fair during the original IT'S SPOOKY recording session.

Jad Fair & Daniel Johnston "Lucky Sperms: Somewhat Humorous"

The Lucky Sperms: Somewhat Humorous by Jad Fair and Daniel Johnston is being released hot on the heels of the Jagjaguwar reissue of Jad and Daniel's once-sadly-overlooked opus It's Spooky (originally released in 1989.) It is a timely reunion of two of the most compelling and idiosyncratic songwriters to emerge from the post-punk rubble of the late-'70s. Their initial collaboration on It's Spooky seemed too good to be true. This time they have entered into the proverbial bat-cave with co-conspirator Chris Bultman and have created a piece of heaven on earth.

Recorded and produced by Jad Fair, The Lucky Sperms: Somewhat Humorous is made up mostly of songs composed skeletally and separately by Bultman, Fair and Johnston. With Bultman being the x-factor notwithstanding, what makes all of Jad and Daniel's shared works so special is the natural chemistry between them that is so readily apparent upon first listen of the record. There is an unrefined playfulness in their work, a playfulness not much unlike what was present on Bob Dylan and The Band's Basement Tapes.

Both Fair and Johnston have enjoyed long careers making music in their own unique way. They have forged their own paths and created their own mythologies, borrowing little from anybody else. Since 1977, Fair has--with his iconoclastic band Half Japanese, as a solo artist, or with collaborators Yo La Tengo, the Pastels or Teenage Fanclub--defied convention while continually tapping that primal-root-without-inhibition that most every artist strives for. Johnston, likewise, has unflinchingly plowed forth for the past twenty years with his own artistic vision. Since the early days of hawking his boombox-recorded cassettes on Austin, Texas, street corners, through his classic mid-period Shimmy-Disc albums, through the major label fiasco and to now, as he is at long last re-emerging as a public artist, Johnston has been making a clear case for his being one of this past quarter century's most important songwriters. He is nothing less than a visionary. It is no surprise, then, that each of Jad and Daniel's trademark personalities are in full-regalia on this new record. (How could such large personalities be anything but?) It blissfully follows--true to the form of all of their past works--that The Lucky Sperms: Somewhat Humorous is another chapter in a magical trip through the child-like universe of two kids at heart. On it, both of them uninhibitedly walk you through their best fantasies and worst dreams.

Jamila Woods "HEAVN Secretly Society Exclusive"

Julie Doiron "Desormais / Heart and Crime Reissue"

Julie Doiron's stunning album Désormais, originally released via Jagjaguwar in 2001, marked a departure from the Canadian artist's grunge pop releases in the 1990s. Like its title might suggest, the intimate record is sung almost entirely in French. Across Désormais' ten tracks, Doiron builds a disarming and warm atmosphere - through minimally-composed fingerpicking, Doiron's soft voice steers a wounded sound. Even for the English-speaking listener, the cohesion of the LP's subdued, immersive atmosphere looms. Désormais clearly communicates a close, unflinching look at self-doubt submerged in melancholy.

Heart and Crime, released less than a year later in 2002, traverses much of the same territory. Written within the same time as Désormais, Heart and Crime is a companion to its predecessor, similarly vulnerable and scarce compositionally, save for flickers of brass or a piano line flitting in or out. Again, its weight comes from its somber simplicity, in Doiron's wistful voice and lyricism.

Désormais and Heart and Crime serve as visceral time capsules for Doiron's own personal history. It’s fitting, then that the records are also distinct placeholders within the Jagjaguwar canon. Désormais and Heart and Crime came at a time just as the label began to widen its scope. Doiron's work was amongst the first in a new era of Jagjaguwar artists that expanded the label’s roster and aesthetic, ushering in new and diverse definitions of Jagjaguwar's early dedication to emotional dissonance.

Julie Doiron "I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day"

Everything is coming together in Julie Doiron's world, from embracing her electric past, to embarking on a new and energetic phase of her solo career with some of the most upbeat and inspiring songs of her recording career. I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day — which arrives on the heels of the album Lost Wisdom, Doiron and her bandmate Fred Squire’s recent critically-acclaimed collaboration with Mt. Eerie — presents listeners with an album that reflects both her continued growth as an artist and a renewed optimism as a songwriter as well. As has often been the case, Doiron’s songwriting is rooted in what’s happening around her.

More than any other songwriter, you can tell exactly what's going on in her life. Direct and painfully honest, she lays it all out in her lyrics. "I just sing about what's happening," she admits, resigned to her style. "I don't know how to do anything else. I don't know how to write any other way. I've wanted to... I've tried! Because sometimes I feel like maybe I shouldn't be so direct, but I don't know how."

In addition to this new perspective, Doiron has made an album which showcases a thick distortion and melodic pop not heard since her days with indie heroes Eric's Trip in the '90s. It's part of a desire to get back to her electric days with that band. The past couple of years have seen Eric's Trip regroup for triumphant reunion tours, and a rekindling of her work with Trip mainstay Rick White (who produced her 2007 Polaris Prize-nominated album Woke Myself Up, and returned for this album). I Can Wonder was recorded at White's isolated home studio, just northwest of Toronto. Doiron handled the electric and acoustic guitar parts, Rick played all the bass and keyboards, and Fred Squire performed all the drums and some lead guitar. Squire, who comes from Sackville, New Brunswick, is Julie's bandmate in another of her projects, Calm Down It's Monday.

Julie Doiron "Loneliest In The Morning"

Originally released in 1997 by Sub Pop, Loneliest In The Morning was Doiron’s second solo release and her first release as Julie Doiron (having dropped the moniker Broken Girl). This re-issue comes complete with three bonus tracks: “Second Time” from split 7” with Snailhouse and the tracks “Who Will Be The One” and “Too Much” from the 7” release Doiron recorded with the Wooden Stars. Loneliest In The Morning — an album Pitchfork described as “catchy enough to knock Liz Phair upside the head” — is a critical piece to the Doiron catalog and given the wonderful relationship Doiron and Jagjaguwar have forged over the last decade, this re-issue is particularly significant.

Julie Doiron began her career in music in 1990 at the age of 18 in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada playing bass in Eric's Trip, a folky yet psychedelic band that were to become the undisputed underground darlings of Canadian music. Eric's Trip were the first of many maritime Canadians signed to Sub Pop and found international recognition, releasing several albums and touring widely. Following 1996's Purple Blue, Eric's Trip announced their breakup and Julie Doiron embarked on her solo career, first releasing songs as Broken Girl and soon under her own name starting with Loneliest In The Morning, which was recorded in Memphis, TN with producer Dave Shouse of the Grifters. She has released seven full-lengths and three EPs, including the Juno Award-winning Julie Doiron & the Wooden Stars album.

Julie Doiron "Woke Myself Up"

We all are driven to doing certain things and making certain decisions in our lives for any number of reasons, be it ambition, fear, greed or love. The last purpose is perhaps the most identifiable to most of us, and so it is no great mystery that that which drives us can both reward us immensely and plummet us into the greatest depths of inconsolable sadness and regret. On Julie Doiron’s first album of new material in over two years, she addresses in her signature intimate songwriting style both the heights and the fallout in a way that forces the listener to reexamine their own loves.

One of the most important and greatest loves in Julie’s life is that towards her family. The first half of Woke Myself Up details the joy and awe that her family has given her. Immediately, one knows that her unabashed and unaffected lyrics are coming from a woman truly moved. The second half sees Julie making mistakes, blowing second chances, and coming to terms with the sad truth that one cannot live up to expectations set by herself or those she loves. The harrowing untitled final track (recorded and added to the album at the eleventh hour by Doiron) may very well be the most affecting of Doiron’s performances ever committed to tape.

Also important to the recording of this album was a reunion of sorts with her musical family. Founding Eric’s Trip bandmate Rick White produced and played on the entire album, and a handful of the songs contain the entire original Eric’s Trip band nucleus that took the Canadian indie underground by storm 15 years ago. Working with an old friend and collaborator like White was key to this album’s intensely vulnerable and emotionally raw tone. What’s captured is timeless and universal, in the same way as Cat Power’s Moon Pix, Leonard Cohen’s Songs of Love And Hate, and Joni Mitchell’s Blue.

Julie Doiron "Goodnight Nobody"

Goodnight Nobody finds an unguarded Julie Doiron, efficiently but undeliberately creating her first masterpiece in only a few days time at three different locations. Ploughing through the studio in just a few days with a gangly crew of musicians, the result is a collection of songs that all are “allowed” to speak for themselves. Their instinctive “rawness” remains intact, not cooked out by incessant knob twiddling or second-guessing. With the help of friends like Herman Dune (who also perform as her European touring band) and ex-Eric’s Trip collaborator Rick White, she has taken the textures of her first widely released full-length Loneliest in the Morning and mixed them with the crystalline vocal performance of her most recent full-length Heart and Crime. Goodnight Nobody is the end product, the best of both worlds, downcast and moody pop tunes right from the heart, aimed straight at the heart. Even though she is described frequently in the press as an “indie-diva” or “chanteuse” of the highest power, Julie Doiron fits these well-intentioned approbations only in that she is a woman singer comfortable in her own skin. Under-reported are her signature guitar-stylings and her singular mastery of conveying mood and sentiment in song. For fans of Cat Power, Leonard Cohen and Hayden.

Julie Doiron "Broken Girl"

Jagjaguwar is proud to release the long lost Julie Doiron album Broken Girl, expanded to include her first two 7"es. It was originally released in 1996 (in a scant edition of 1000) by Doiron after her band--the psychedelic folk group Eric's Trip — had crumbled around her, under the temporary moniker "Broken Girl". The name did nothing to hide her feelings regarding the breakup of her band and the relationships that she shared with its members; neither did the songs on the record. The twelve songs from the original album come across like an epitaph for a departed lover. Broken Girl was a watershed for Doiron, showing her to be the sort of songwriter and performer that Eric's Trip only hinted at. Achingly beautiful and showcasing her vocal style and personality as a songwriter, the reviews immediately put her in the same class as Leonard Cohen in terms of importance as a Canadian solo artist. The album was self-recorded in the same home-y manner as the classic Eric's Trip albums which helped--along with albums by peers Sebadoh, East River Pipe and Smog — define the bedroom aesthetic of the early '90s. While some rock scribes would call it lo-fi, the fidelity of the recordings that Doiron and her Eric's Trip mates employed in the first half of the '90s was clearly the most appropriate medium. The close-mic'ing of everything from the vocals to the swirling guitars and peaking drums created a sense of real intimacy (while avoiding a lot of the awkward pitfalls that so many confessional songwriters run into) and suburban claustrophobia. Rolling Stone wrote, "Fellow Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen once titled an album Songs From A Room. Montreal-based Julie Doiron apparently took up residence there and removed whatever furniture was left behind."

Julie Doiron "Will You Still Love Me?"

Will You Still Love Me? and Julie Doiron and the Wooden Stars are the two much-acclaimed albums that Julie Doiron released on Tree Records in 1999 (the latter was also released on her own Sappy Records imprint in Canada, where it won the 2000 Juno Award-the Canadian equivalent to the Grammy-for best independently released record of the year). Having been out of print for the greater part of two years, Jagjaguwar is proud to reintroduce them to the record buying public in newly packaged form, with upgraded booklets that include lyrics for the first time. Also, the Julie Doiron and the Wooden Stars CD will include a compressed version of her video for the song "Dance Music", accessible to fans with personal computers. After a solo album on Sub Pop (her home for the previous decade with Eric's Trip), Doiron found a good home in Tree, for whom she first released Will You Still Love Me? As the inaugural EP, it was also a creative spring-board for Doiron, a mini-album that has endured as a fan favorite. Adored for its sparse, no-nonsense demeanor, the EP offers a first glimpse at what has become Doiron's signature style, the moody union of vocals and guitar whose unified tone both expresses and evokes a timeless longing for a comforting, primal maternalism.

Julie Doiron "Heart And Crime"

One writer puts it best: "Fellow Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen once titled an album Songs From A Room. Montreal-based Julie Doiron apparently took up residence there and removed whatever furniture was left behind." Heart And Crime is the follow-up to the much acclaimed Julie Doiron and the Wooden Stars (winner of the coveted Canadian entertainment award, the Juno, for 2000) and comes hot on the heels of the French-sung Jagjaguwar release Desormais. Like her previous records, Heart And Crime abhors unneccessary accoutrements. It relies on naked and minimal arrangements to propel familiar themes of self-doubt, hope, longing and sadness. The tone of intimacy throughout the record is like that which comes after three bottles of wine; a solitary singer with guitar, singing to herself, accompanied only by the sounds coming through the wall. Described frequently in the press as an "indie-diva" or "chanteuse" of the highest power, Doiron fits these well-intentioned approbations only in that she is a woman singer comfortable in her own skin. Under-reported are her signature guitar-stylings and her singular mastery of earnestly conveying mood and sentiment in the body of song. The latter is where she outpaces contemporaries like Edith Frost, Mia Doi Todd, Catpower, Elliot Smith or Beth Orton. Doiron seems destined for the pantheon of important singer-songwriters of this generation, and her affective powers are significant. According to another writer, Doiron's "moody minor key whispers make Joni Mitchell seem almost giddy by comparison."

Julie Doiron "Desormais"

Julie Doiron is the most entrancing chanteuse at this North American block party. Fans of her work as a founding member of early '90s hyper-moody Eric's Trip will be thrilled with this latest chapter in her unfurling body of work. Desormais is the French-language record Doiron has always wanted to create. Although the full-length is mostly sung in French (all but one song), it still contains all of the hallmark characteristics of Doiron's songwriting; it is a record that contains music of spartan beauty while the songs all tend towards moodiness but hedge themselves by steadfastly remaining understated. Whether or not you understand the French tongue, Doiron's stylized guitar and vocal melodicism are so lyrical that they transcend the need for translation. It is no surprise that this Acadian songwriter from Montreal, Quebec, is often compared to songwriters of a previous generation. Perhaps the most appropriate comment made by any writer is how Doiron's "moody minor key whispers make Joni Mitchell seem almost giddy by comparison."

Julie Doiron and the Wooden Stars "s/t"

After a solo album on Sub Pop (her home for the previous decade with Eric's Trip), Doiron found a good home in Tree, for whom she first released Will You Still Love Me? As the inaugural EP, it was also a creative spring-board for Doiron, a mini-album that has endured as a fan favorite. Adored for its sparse, no-nonsense demeanor, the EP offers a first glimpse at what has become Doiron's signature style, the moody union of vocals and guitar whose unified tone both expresses and evokes a timeless longing for a comforting, primal maternalism.

From that understated gem she launched right into her most critically-acclaimed and accessible album, Julie Doiron and the Wooden Stars. Ottawa-based quartet the Wooden Stars played as the back-up band and helped Doiron step out of her solitary, introspective robe and venture into a more urgent and upbeat, albeit still relatively spartan, direction. Combining elements of rock and jazz-a la Joni Mitchell's early '70s work-Julie and the Wooden Stars somehow translated the coldness of the Canadian winter into one of the warmest and most tender records to be produced in the Eastern province in years.

Ladyhawk "Shots"

Ladyhawk's kiss-of-death evokes the devilish sounds of Goats Head Soup guitars, the honey-slides and howling of Neil Young in his darkest hours, and the phantoms that haunted Roky Erickson at the Holiday Inn. Recorded over a period of two weeks in an abandoned farm house behind the shopping mall in the band's childhood hometown of Kelowna, British Columbia, Shots is an album filled with the cold creaking and ghostly echoes of the old house in the dead of winter. Like a party for the last house standing in a sea of strip malls and condos, surely near the end of its time.